ARTSAKH HISTORICAL MONUMENTS

Touz 83 Monuments

Azerbaijan (Country) / Northern Artsakh (Area) / Touz (District)

Location

The district, which occupies an area of 1,903 square kilometres was established in 1930 and has a 100 residential settlements, including 98 villages. It borders on Ghazakh, Shamkhor and Getabek Districts of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Tavush Marz of the Republic of Armenia, and Tziteli-Tzegharo District of the Republic of Georgia. It mostly covers the basin of the river Zakam and the plains extending on the right bank of the river Kur. The territory of the present-day district of Touz is mainly identical to the historical district of Nerkin (Lower) Zakam, and partly Verin (Upper) Zakam.

Karapetian, Samvel. Northern Artsakh, Yerevan, 2007, pp. 522-523.

Historical Introduction
1548 y․

Written sources mention the district in 1548, in 1639 (“…by the grace of Khoranashat’s Sourb Astvatzatzin, in the district of Zagam…”), and in 1706 (“In the year 1706, Mirza Ghasum left for Zakam to expel the army. I, Melik Kemal, came to arrange the work on the feast-day of the Holy Virgin”).

The Persian Documents of the Matenadaran: Decrees (15th to 16th cents.). Translated from the original Persian into Armenian by Papazian, H. Yerevan, 1959, pp. 59, 90.
Colophons of the Armenian Manuscripts of the 17th century, vol. 2. Compiled by Hakobian, V., Hovhannissian, A. Yerevan, 1978, p. 785.
Brief Chronicles, vol. 1. Compiled by Hakobian, V. A. Yerevan, 1951, p. 289.
Karapetian, Samvel. Northern Artsakh, Yerevan, 2007, p. 523.

13 c․

The description of the area where the Armeno-Georgian army was defeated by the Mongols in the early 13th century mentions the toponym of ‘Sagim,’ which is identified to Zakam. With this regard, a record reads, “…the troops moved on, stationing themselves in a place now called Sagim, on the bank of the river Berduj…”

Melikset-Bek, L. M. Georgian Sources about Armenia and Armenians, vol. 2, Yerevan, 1936, p. 51.
Karapetian, Samvel. Northern Artsakh, Yerevan, 2007, p. 523.

Interestingly enough, the available written sources make frequent references only to the name of Verin Zakam, while the lower part of the district, which is actually Nerkin Zakam, is simply mentioned by the name of Zakam.

Records on Verin Zakam District are mainly found in the 17th century in connection with certain events that took place in the following villages: Gharamurat (1610, 1679), Shakarbek (1633), Sultanetsik (1647, 1671), Melikzata (1652), Papajan and Khavunis (1655). Karapetian, Samvel. Northern Artsakh, Yerevan, 2007, p. 523.

1770 y․

Extending in vast plains that provided no natural means of defense, the Armenian-inhabited district was gradually stripped of its residents. The last remaining Armenians left it in the 1770s and resettled in Shulaver.
The cemetery of Metz Shulaver retains the tombstone of Sargis, the prince of Zakam.

Karapetian, Samvel. Northern Artsakh, Yerevan, 2007, p. 523.

19 c․

By the late 19th century, most of the district had been inhabited by some stock-breeding Turkish tribes. The only village to preserve its Armenian population was Krzen, which was left absolutely derelict in the aftermath of the forced deportation of 1988 to 1989.

Karapetian, Samvel. Northern Artsakh, Yerevan, 2007, p. 523.

Name	Year/Century	Etymology
Zakam